To What Extent Does A Photograph Reveal The Truth About Someone’s Personality?

“It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible....” ― The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

This, like many of the Irish writer’s bon mots, is of course an exaggerated and provocative overstatement of the truth. But is there not a kernel of truth in his claim that you can judge people by their appearance? And what hidden truths about a person does a photograph reveal?

There have been numerous psychological studies on this topic. Typically, test participants are presented with portrait photographs and asked to make assessments of the personalities of the persons depicted. However, other scientific studies have proved “that many cues to personality also reside below the head.”

For a study on “Personality Judgements Based on Physical Appearance,” the American researchers Laura P. Neumann, Simine Vazire, Peter J. Rentfrow and Samuel D. Gosling examined the following two questions:

1.   What traits can be perceived accurately based on physical appearance in a standardized (posed) photograph?

2.   Does accuracy improve when spontaneously expressed nonverbal components of physical appearance are visible to observers?

The experiment’s 123 participants (observers) were asked to assess the personalities of test subjects based solely on photographs of the subjects. These personality trait assessments were then compared with the test subject’s actual personality traits, which had been determined by a personality test (Big Five) and a variety of single-item measures. In addition, three other people who knew each of the photographed test subjects well were asked to complete a questionnaire on the subject’s personality. These results were then compared with the observers’ assessments, which were based entirely on the photographs. The results of the experiment: “Consistent with our predictions, aggregated observers’ ratings showed some degree of accuracy for extraversion and marginally significant levels of accuracy for openness and emotional stability. However, observers were not accurate at judging agreeableness and conscientiousness. In addition, observers’ judgements of self-esteem and religiosity were also accurate at above chance levels when observers’ judgements were aggregated.”

The results were very different when the observers were presented with photographs in which the test subjects had decided for themselves which facial and postural expressions to adopt for a second set of photographs. “When observers saw targets in their spontaneous posts, they were able to judge 9 of 10 traits with some degree of accuracy, and for 4 of those traits, the observers were more accurate than in the standardized condition … These findings suggest that observers’ lay theories about personality and its manifestation in physical appearance have some kernel of truth to them, especially when targets can choose their own posture and facial expression … That is, observers are able to form reasonably accurate impressions for a number of traits simply on the basis of physical appearance.“

So it is clear that it is not possible to judge a person on the basis of a photo alone, but photos, especially when the subjects they portray have been able to determine the posture and facial expression they adopt, can certainly form the basis of an initial assessment and definitely say something about a person.